The following tables compare notable reference management software. The comparison includes older applications that may no longer be supported, as well as actively-maintained software.
General
In the "notes" section, there is a difference between:
web-based, referring to applications that may be installed on a web server (usually requiring MySQL or another database and PHP, Perl, Python, or some other language for web applications), and;
Data can be saved locally on the computer, or, for team access, in the Citavi Cloud or an intranet Microsoft SQL Server;[3] search databases from interface[4]
Multi-platform desktop version with connectors for Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Web-based access to reference library also available through Zotero.org or through a personal cloud-based database folder on a user's computer (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.).
Operating system support
In the case of web applications, this describes the server OS. For centrally hosted websites that are proprietary, this is not applicable. Any clientOS can connect to a web service unless stated otherwise in a footnote.
This table lists the machine-readable file formats that can be exported from reference managers. These are typically used to share data with other reference managers or with other people who use a reference manager. To exchange data from one program to another, the first program must be able to export to a format that the second program may import. Import file formats are in a table below this one.
COinS, CSV, Several RDF format standards, TEI, Wikipedia citation templates, Endnote XML, CSL JSON, Refer/BiblX, RefWorks tagged
Import file formats
This table lists the file formats which may be manually imported into the reference managers without needing to connect to one particular database. Many of these database companies use the same name for their file format as they do for their database (including Copac, CSA, ISI, Medline, Ovid, PubMed, and SciFinder). For the ability to retrieve citations from the particular databases (rather than the file format), please refer to the database connectivity table that is below this table.
As of January 2021[update], CSLYAML is not supported by any reference management system.[15]
Some reference management software include support for automatic embedding and (re)formatting of references in Word processor programs. This table lists this type of support for Microsoft Word, Pages, Apache OpenOffice / LibreOffice Writer, the LaTeX editors Kile and LyX, and Google Docs. Other programs are able to scan RTF or other textual formats for inserted placeholders which are subsequently formatted. Most reference management programs support copy/paste or drag-and-drop of references into any editor, but this is not meant here.
WorldCat/OCLC, Ovid, EBSCO, ProQuest, Web of Science, Z39.50 (4500+ online resources), SRU. Further catalogs are added upon request. Browser plugins (Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer) support DOI lookup, ISBN lookup, PubMed ID lookup, PMCID lookup, arXiv ID lookup, COinS and import from Wikipedia.
Some reference managers provide network functionality (N/A, not available, means the product has no networking, while "No" indicates it does but lacks an implemented feature). The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed directory services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.[48]
^ abcMSRP for full version, usually with physical media. Discounted downloads and academic discounts might be available. More expensive workgroup/server/librarian versions may be available.
^Price depends on affiliation (discounted price for students and members of academic, governmental, and nonprofit organizations), edition (Citavi for Windows for single users and teams with cloud storage, Citavi for DBServer for teams with intranet storage, Citavi Web with cloud storage), and, in the case of DBServer, on the license type (per seat license vs. concurrent license): "Products". www.citavi.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-27.
^ abThe GUI requires gnome-python, which isn't available for Windows or macOS.
^ abZotero can import references directly from the database after which this format is named, although it cannot read the format itself.
^This refers to the direct output of raw LaTeX (often in a format similar to the BibTeX-generated .bbl files). Many programs can export BibTeX (see above table), which can then be processed into LaTeX.[27]
^Database can be exported as a whole in BibTeX format. Text (i.e. thoughts, comments, and quotations) can be fed into a number of TeX editors in LaTeX code or UTF-8.
^Database can be exported as a whole in BibTeX format.Insert citations via citation key generated by Mendeley.
^Most databases allow one to create different user accounts to store records. Some further allow you to specify permissions (granting and denying some users the rights to edit or read some or all of your records). This column describes the latter.
^Storage in Citavi cloud or, with special license, in Microsoft SQL Server in intranet.
^ abcd"pandoc 2.11 (2020-10-11)". pandoc.org. Retrieved 2023-04-04. Added bibtex, biblatex as input formats. This allows pandoc to convert between BibLaTeX and BibTeX and other bibliography formats, and to generate formatted versions of BibTeX/BibLaTeX bibliographies (e.g., pandoc -f biblatex --citeproc pl.bib -o pl.pdf).
^ ab"Citavi". www.citavi.com. Retrieved 2023-04-04. Citavi offers over 10,000 citation styles. Other styles can be requested and are centrally corrected; and any BibTeX style can be used with LaTeX.
^Refbase can create a spreadsheet for import into an OO.o database to use the native OO.o bibliography tool. Refbase's MySQL database can additionally be used directly by OO.o [1].
^The LyZ extension integrates Zotero with Lyx/Kile
